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Civil War Charleston- Chapter 9- Mount Pleasant- Fort Moultrie (Stop 1)

The original fort was built during the Revolutionary War, made of palmetto logs it resisted attacks by the British. It was renamed from Fort Sullivan (the fort is on Sullivan’s island) to Fort Moultrie after its commander Colonel William Moultrie. After years of neglect a second fort was built on the site in 1798 but was destroyed by a hurricane in 1804. Construction on the present day fort was started in 1809. The fort was completed before the start of the war and was part of a ring of forts that guarded the harbor. On December 26, 1860, Major Robert Anderson and his garrison left Fort Moultrie for Fort Sumter in the middle of the night. Anderson left Moultrie because he realized that the fort was built to stop a naval intruder not a land-based assault. He spiked the guns and burned the gun carriages. South Carolina initially occupied Fort Moultrie the next day. Artillery at Fort Moultrie participated in the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. In April 1863 the siege of Charleston began and lasted until February 17, 1865. The fort was modernized in the 1870s and remained active until World War II. Shown below are two zoom lens views of Fort Sumter from Fort Moultrie.

View from the sea wall at Fort Moultrie
Fort Sumter
St. Michael’s Church with the white steeple in the middle of the image- picture from the sea wall
Morris Island- picture taken from the sea wall, the lighthouse is to the far left
Morris Island- zoom lens view from the sea wall- in the foreground is the extension of the south Charleston harbor jetty. In this image the lighthouse appears in the middle but is actually at the far end of the island close to Folly Island.

Exterior views of the Fort Moultrie shown below.

Osceola grave and the Patapsco monument
From the roof of the visitor center
From the roof of the visitor center
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Patapsco Monument– 32.7597667, -79.8577667

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The Torpedo Storehouse
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7-inch triple-banded Brooke
10-inch Parrott Rifle
8-inch Parrott Rifle
10-inch Confederate Columbiad
Modified 10-inch Columbiad
10-inch Rodman
10-inch Rodman
13-inch Mortar
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Ordnance Storeroom

15-inch Rodman smoothbore cannons

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View of the foundation of the barracks
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Two 32-pounder Smoothbores
8-inch Columbiad, Banded and Rifledl
10-inch Columbiad made at the Tredegar Foundry in Richmond, Virginia
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The Traverse
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Powder Magazine
A garrison gin holds a 24-pounder Siege Gun, the gin wasn’t there on my last visit

The images below were generated by Battlefields in Motion and are a 3-D reconstruction of the fort and what it would have looked like at the start of the Civil War.

Reconstruction viewed from the Sally port side of the fort
Reconstruction viewed from the ocean side of the fort

The images below were generated by Battlefields in Motion and are a 3-D reconstruction of the interior of the fort and what it would have looked like at the start of the Civil War.

Interior looking at the Sally port side
Interior looking at the ocean wall side
Interior looking at the side wall

The Confederate dispensary- 1026 Middle Street

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